New Yorkers are set to keep paying for prostitutes’ STD treatments and birth control.
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration will spend an additional $1.5 million in tax-dollars on prostitutes’ healthcare, reviving the $1 million pilot program without legislative approval, The New York Post reported Friday.
New York State Department of Public Health, Hochul’s office, Community Health Project, and Evergreen Health did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Community Health Project owns the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center (Callen-Lorde) in Brooklyn, which “pioneered healthcare equity in the spirit of resistance—and with a deep commitment to fighting stigma and health disparities,” according to its website.
The New York State Department of Public Health’s AIDS Institute granted Callen-Lorde’s and Evergreen Health’s parent corporations $1 million to cover prostitutes’ primary, behavioral, dental, and sexual health services, The Post reported July 2023. The department recently extended the program through 2028 after expiring last year.
“The lengths by which New York Democrats will cater to the far left has no greater example then [sic] Gov. Hochul funding healthcare for hookers to the tune of millions while actual frontline healthcare workers … live on food stamps,” Republican Assemblyman Michael Novakhov reportedly said. “Instead of playing pimp, Kathy ‘Ho-Ho’ Hochul and Mayor ‘Madam’ Mamdani should consider making sure the heroes who answer 911 calls and save lives every day can afford their rent and groceries.”
The extension came after calls from Democratic firebrands such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in favor of decriminalizing prostitution, according to The Post.
“Not only must we decriminalize sex work, we need a comprehensive platform of justice for all,” Mamdani stated in an X post during his May 2020 campaign for state assembly.
“[Hochul] is a target and trying to keep them [Mamdani and state Democratic Socialists of America] at bay [during her re-election bid] with other people’s money,” Republican Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo reportedly said. He also pointed out how prostitutes can already receive abortions and pills for sexually transmitted diseases at medical facilities for free within the state.
(DCNF)